So Hornady has unveiled their 6.5 PRC round. Now, I'm all in favor of the 6.5mm caliber for precision shooting and hunting, not to mention military use (what's taking the Army so long to adopt the Grendel?), but this one makes me scratch my head. It appears to be too long to fit in an AR-10, although the company website claims it will fit short and medium actions. (Hornady - why no specifications? Would it really kill you to give the cartridge dimensions?) It takes a magnum bolt face. It fires 143/147 grain rounds at 2950± fps from a 24" barrel, which is fairly impressive for that caliber in a non-magnum cartridge. It's over 200 fps faster than the 6.5 Creedmoor, and that's no long range slouch.
However, this one seems to be a solution in search of a problem. The 6.5 PRC essentially duplicates the .270 Winchester. No one doubts the capabilities and popularity of the .270, so why reinvent the wheel? I understand the Hornady is championing the 6.5mm caliber. After all, the 6.5 Creedmoor is ridiculously popular, with excellent performance on the range. It's also starting to catch on in the field. But I really don't see the 6.5 PRC replacing the .270, or even lasting very long in its shadow. Yes, it's superior to the Creedmoor, but with added recoil and throat wear that the bench rest competitors probably won't appreciate. Having said that, it only drops 36" at 500 yards when zeroed at 200, and that's nothing to complain about.
As Tim "The Tool Man" Taylor says, "More power!" However, sometimes, for some purposes, enough really is enough.
Monday, December 25, 2017
Monday, December 11, 2017
Give 6.5mm some love
The caliber and cartridge wars continue. What all agree upon is that 5.56x45 is anemic and insufficient for the current combat environments. This, of course, has been known for 15 years now, and yet our beloved Army has done nothing about the problem. Oh, they have brought out of storage the M14s that they saved from Clinton's attempted purge, but those were made over 50 years ago. Surely, there is something newer and better? Let us ignore NATO commitments for this flight of fancy. After all, it's not like NATO troops (other than some of the English speaking ones) are good for anything any more.
Serbia is in the process of rearming their special forces troops. They're replacing the 5.45mm AKs with newly designed 6.5mm Grendel AKs. These aren't your granddaddy's AKs, though. These are high quality steel and polymer builds with close tolerances, with decent barrels, using the little cartridge that could. Dust covers. Thumb reachable selector levers. Optics. Rails. These are high quality, modern weapons. I highly approve. Of, and of course, they have carbines, designated marksman rifles, and light machine guns. They appear to be using 108 grain bullets for the carbines, and 123 grain bullets for the rifles and LMGs. This makes a great deal of sense - it lightens the average rifleman's load a bit, and roughly equalizes the trajectories of the bullets from the different barrel lengths.
6.5mm bullets are not superior, but not by magic. They are superior because humans are firing them from human portable weapons. 6.5mm is the sweet spot for recoil versus bullet shape and weight. That means that 6.5mm bullets have relatively low recoil for a relatively high ballistic coefficient, yet still wide enough to be deadly to human sized targets. Don't misunderstand - .22 caliber bullets kill people - eventually. The target will bleed out over the next several hours without prompt medical treatment. (The US Army recommends shooting a target at least 5 times, at short range, to stop them with a .223. Not kill, stop. There's a difference.) But .223s don't cause shock outside of a very short range, especially with full metal jacketed military bullets. It takes a thicker, wider, heavier bullet to cause a large temporary wound cavity in the target. This is what pulps organs and ruptures blood vessels that aren't in the direct bath of the projectile. And that, my friends, is what causes an immediate cessation of hostilities by the target.
So, if we have a goal of using 6.5mm bullets, what cartridge should we use? The Grendel is an obvious choice, and probably the correct one for individual weapons. It has long legs, but not so much recoil as to make it unmanageable in close quarters. We could argue about using an AK or AR platform, but we Americans like our ARs, and there's no reason not to use a modified AR as the base platform. There's even a belt fed variant, that's a bit lighter than the m249 SAW.
What, then, shall we use for heavier weapons? The 7.62x51 is tried and true, if not optimal. Switching to a 6.5mm Creedmoor would be beneficial, but not dramatically so. Given that the 6.5 Grendal rounds have excellent performance at long ranges, combined with better than average penetration qualities, I think we could dispence with the 7.62mm NATO round all together, except perhaps for miniguns. Instead, for crew served, mounted weapons, we could use something heavier. After all, engagements at long range are relatively common now, and many adversaries wear body armor capable of defeating the .308 cartridge. The 7mm magnum is a fairly obvious choice, if we want to stay with a smaller caliber. The 7mm Nosler would have even longer legs. However, let us broaden our horizons.
In a crew served weapon, especially when mounted, recoil is not the primary objection. If it were, we would never use the venerable .50 BMG. So, we could invision a weapon using a cartridge of between .264 (6.5mm) and .338 (8.6mm) caliber. Since we intend for this cartridge to engage targets at long ranges and defeat modern body armor, the larger calibers would probably be better. So, we automatically go to the upper limit of .338, in either a Lapua or Nosler cartridge. These would give a medium machine gun long legs, without being quite as heavy as an m2a1 BMG. Size and weight of weapon and ammunition are still important considerations, of course. What other cartridges could fill the role? Most of the .30 caliber magnum cartridges would serve nearly as well. What we're really looking for is something that delivers over 3500 foot pounds of energy at the muzzle, with a high ballistic coefficient bullet travelling at over 2800 feet per second. What are your thoughts?
Serbia is in the process of rearming their special forces troops. They're replacing the 5.45mm AKs with newly designed 6.5mm Grendel AKs. These aren't your granddaddy's AKs, though. These are high quality steel and polymer builds with close tolerances, with decent barrels, using the little cartridge that could. Dust covers. Thumb reachable selector levers. Optics. Rails. These are high quality, modern weapons. I highly approve. Of, and of course, they have carbines, designated marksman rifles, and light machine guns. They appear to be using 108 grain bullets for the carbines, and 123 grain bullets for the rifles and LMGs. This makes a great deal of sense - it lightens the average rifleman's load a bit, and roughly equalizes the trajectories of the bullets from the different barrel lengths.
6.5mm bullets are not superior, but not by magic. They are superior because humans are firing them from human portable weapons. 6.5mm is the sweet spot for recoil versus bullet shape and weight. That means that 6.5mm bullets have relatively low recoil for a relatively high ballistic coefficient, yet still wide enough to be deadly to human sized targets. Don't misunderstand - .22 caliber bullets kill people - eventually. The target will bleed out over the next several hours without prompt medical treatment. (The US Army recommends shooting a target at least 5 times, at short range, to stop them with a .223. Not kill, stop. There's a difference.) But .223s don't cause shock outside of a very short range, especially with full metal jacketed military bullets. It takes a thicker, wider, heavier bullet to cause a large temporary wound cavity in the target. This is what pulps organs and ruptures blood vessels that aren't in the direct bath of the projectile. And that, my friends, is what causes an immediate cessation of hostilities by the target.
So, if we have a goal of using 6.5mm bullets, what cartridge should we use? The Grendel is an obvious choice, and probably the correct one for individual weapons. It has long legs, but not so much recoil as to make it unmanageable in close quarters. We could argue about using an AK or AR platform, but we Americans like our ARs, and there's no reason not to use a modified AR as the base platform. There's even a belt fed variant, that's a bit lighter than the m249 SAW.
What, then, shall we use for heavier weapons? The 7.62x51 is tried and true, if not optimal. Switching to a 6.5mm Creedmoor would be beneficial, but not dramatically so. Given that the 6.5 Grendal rounds have excellent performance at long ranges, combined with better than average penetration qualities, I think we could dispence with the 7.62mm NATO round all together, except perhaps for miniguns. Instead, for crew served, mounted weapons, we could use something heavier. After all, engagements at long range are relatively common now, and many adversaries wear body armor capable of defeating the .308 cartridge. The 7mm magnum is a fairly obvious choice, if we want to stay with a smaller caliber. The 7mm Nosler would have even longer legs. However, let us broaden our horizons.
In a crew served weapon, especially when mounted, recoil is not the primary objection. If it were, we would never use the venerable .50 BMG. So, we could invision a weapon using a cartridge of between .264 (6.5mm) and .338 (8.6mm) caliber. Since we intend for this cartridge to engage targets at long ranges and defeat modern body armor, the larger calibers would probably be better. So, we automatically go to the upper limit of .338, in either a Lapua or Nosler cartridge. These would give a medium machine gun long legs, without being quite as heavy as an m2a1 BMG. Size and weight of weapon and ammunition are still important considerations, of course. What other cartridges could fill the role? Most of the .30 caliber magnum cartridges would serve nearly as well. What we're really looking for is something that delivers over 3500 foot pounds of energy at the muzzle, with a high ballistic coefficient bullet travelling at over 2800 feet per second. What are your thoughts?
Tuesday, October 31, 2017
Gutless lying weasels
I like physics, as you may have noticed. I watch several different U-tub channels, one of which is MinutePhysics. Today, they released a new video - "Are university admissions biased? Simpson's paradox part 2." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_ME4P9fQbo
The comments on this video are closed. I wonder why? All their other videos seem to allow comments.
Could it be that this is a political video, where the conclusions drawn directly refute the evidence shown? The statistical evidence shows that there is no bias against women in university admissions, and in fact a slight bias towards. This doesn't mean there is no biad against women, according to the video. Oh, no, that would be too simple. It simply means that the bias arises earlier in the educational process, perhaps even in grammar school, or even in society itself.
The video then proceeds to tirelessly repeat known lies about women getting paid less than men for equivalent jobs (hint - untrue), etc, etc, ad nauseum ad feministum.
Facts presented - no bias/slight bias in favor of women. Conclusion - bias against women! Patriarchy! Are we clear? The producers of Minute Physics are thus shown to be gutless lying weasels. I can no longer trust the informational content of their videos, as they have proven themselves to place ham handed politics above sound mathematics and science.
Please note that the video makers had to go all the way back to the 1970s to find statistics close enough to even to even make this topic mildly interesting. A study done in Berkeley, of course. For those not keeping track, universities today run about 2 to 1 against men. Good for dating, bad for education.
Feminism is cancer. Progressivism is cancer. Leftism is cancer. They are fatal to society and individuals. We understand the vector, we can test for the carriers with great certitude. Why do we not rid ourselves of these plagues? At the very least, all children must be thoroughly inocculated against these dreadful maladies, these truly social diseases.
The comments on this video are closed. I wonder why? All their other videos seem to allow comments.
Could it be that this is a political video, where the conclusions drawn directly refute the evidence shown? The statistical evidence shows that there is no bias against women in university admissions, and in fact a slight bias towards. This doesn't mean there is no biad against women, according to the video. Oh, no, that would be too simple. It simply means that the bias arises earlier in the educational process, perhaps even in grammar school, or even in society itself.
The video then proceeds to tirelessly repeat known lies about women getting paid less than men for equivalent jobs (hint - untrue), etc, etc, ad nauseum ad feministum.
Facts presented - no bias/slight bias in favor of women. Conclusion - bias against women! Patriarchy! Are we clear? The producers of Minute Physics are thus shown to be gutless lying weasels. I can no longer trust the informational content of their videos, as they have proven themselves to place ham handed politics above sound mathematics and science.
Please note that the video makers had to go all the way back to the 1970s to find statistics close enough to even to even make this topic mildly interesting. A study done in Berkeley, of course. For those not keeping track, universities today run about 2 to 1 against men. Good for dating, bad for education.
Feminism is cancer. Progressivism is cancer. Leftism is cancer. They are fatal to society and individuals. We understand the vector, we can test for the carriers with great certitude. Why do we not rid ourselves of these plagues? At the very least, all children must be thoroughly inocculated against these dreadful maladies, these truly social diseases.
Monday, October 30, 2017
Monday, October 16, 2017
A response to Mr. Wright
Penned in response to the inestimable John Wright's prose concerning the proper targets of a modern crusade. http://www.scifiwright.com/2017/10/last-crusade-fighting-the-wrong-battle/
The Alt-Right may not be fighting the perfect battle against our enemies on the left with perfect weapons and perfect doctrine and perfect discipline, but they have the supreme virtue of being THE ONLY ONES FIGHTING FOR OUR SIDE at this time.
******
The Alt-Right may not be fighting the perfect battle against our enemies on the left with perfect weapons and perfect doctrine and perfect discipline, but they have the supreme virtue of being THE ONLY ONES FIGHTING FOR OUR SIDE at this time.
******
Saturday, October 14, 2017
A letter the the RNC
To: The Republican National Committee
From: McChuck,
registered Republican, Maryland 6th district
Re: Trump Agenda
Survey
I am in receipt of an RNC survey, allegedly requesting
support for President Donald Trump. I
find the survey to be written in a fashion which appeals to the “Trump base” in
an obvious fashion. I also see that the
request for money for the RNC is unusually condescending, equating money to the
RNC with supporting the President and his agenda.
Please tell me why I should give one thin dime to the RNC,
which has done nothing but oppose the President and his “Make America Great
Again” agenda? Why do you hate the
American people so much? Republicans in
both houses of Congress routinely oppose and deride the President’s
initiatives. I will summarize the issues
presented in the survey as examples.
·
“Build a border wall and stop illegal immigration”
– Republicans in Congress have specifically forbidden the President from
spending federal funds to build a border wall.
Republicans in Congress oppose ending illegal benefits for so-called “Dreamers”,
who are in reality illegal aliens who entered the USA before they turned
18. Many of these came in two waves of
teenaged young men, who have since gone on to commit an impressive number of
crimes against Americans. I will give
you one simple example. https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2015/08/01/15-year-old-hispanic-rapes-and-murders-8-year-old-white-girl-wanted-to-know-how-people-would-react/ Republicans won’t fix this problem, because
they are more concerned with not being called racists than they are about
protecting little American girls from being raped, killed, and tossed in a
dumpster by illegal alien invaders.
·
“Reverse President Obama’s unconstitutional
executive orders” – Almost every time President Trump has done exactly this, he
has been roundly criticized by Republicans in Congress and the Republican
establishment – the RNC itself. They
have even disagreed with President Trump’s wildly applauded pardon of Sheriff
Joe Arpaio. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-30/christie-is-latest-republican-to-criticize-trump-s-arpaio-pardon
·
“Fully enforce our immigration laws and withhold
federal funding from ‘sanctuary cities’ who harbor illegal immigrants in
violation of federal law” – Why is “Kate’s Law” (HR 3004) languishing in the
Senate? This could be passed in a day if
the Republicans in congress truly felt that stopping illegal aliens from
murdering and raping American citizens, even little girls, was of any importance. The truth is that the RNC has no interest in
stopping the flow of illegal immigrants, so that their wealthy donors may
continue to employee cheap labor and so that the American people will be
displaced by Hispanic immigrants who prefer large, intrusive governments – just
like the RNC prefers. Again, why does
the RNC hate the American people so much?
·
“Repeal and replace ObamaCare” – Do I really
have to say anything? This, again, could
be accomplished in a single day. The
Republican dominated House and Senate should have met in an historic joint
session in January to vote on repealing ObamaCare. If Congress can muster the will to pass an
unconstitutional ban on firearms accessories, why can’t the RNC muster the will
to at least defund ObamaCare?
·
“Re-equip and rebuild our military” – The Republicans
voted to reduce military spending, which directly led to the current
problems. The Republicans could have
fixed the funding shortfalls at any time.
They didn’t – which shows that they truly don’t care.
·
“Reduce federal regulation and cut corporate tax
rates to get the economy going” – again, the Republican dominated Congress
could have done this at any point in the last several years. They didn’t because they don’t want to. The Democrats constantly push their opinions
through the media – news, radio, television, and movies. Where is the equivalent Republican push to
dominate media? Until the Republicans
(especially the Conservatives) start to buy or found media outlets to push a
pro-America agenda, I cannot take the RNC seriously. What does the RNC do with all the money it’s
given now? More to the point – defund the
National Endowment for the Arts tomorrow.
Defund the National Science Foundation tomorrow. Defund the Department of Education tomorrow. Defund the Department of Energy (minus the
NRC) tomorrow. Gut the Department of
State, which has been primarily staffed by the enemies of the American people
for at least 70 years.
·
“Encourage domestic exploration and production
of domestic energy sources” – Again, coulda, woulda, shoulda. Why did the approval process for a simple
pipeline take a decade to be approved?
All the RNC needs to do to accomplish this is convince the Republican
dominated congress to order the EPA to stop interfering. But it won’t because the Republicans are
terrified of being called names by the media.
·
“Renegotiate trade deals to put American jobs
and interests first” – Congress can repeal NAFTA tomorrow. They won’t, because their donors pay them not
to. How about Republicans stop opposing
President Trump’s cancelling of the former President Obama’s illegal “totally
not a treaty” Iran deal? After all, Iran
only wants to exterminate us in nuclear fire.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/03/trump-iran-nuclear-deal-republicans-243375 When ships in harbors all around America’s
coastline explode in a nuclear holocaust one day in the not too distant future,
I won’t blame the Democrats. They are
blatant in their goals of destroying America.
The RNC chooses to achieve the same ultimate goal by tacitly supporting
Democrat initiatives after the fact.
·
“Shrink the size of the federal bureaucracy to
make it more accountable and efficient” – Name one serious effort by the RNC
and Congressional Republicans to do just this over the last fifteen years. Start with Congress outlawing government
employee unions. Continue with a law
twilighting all old regulations, and requiring a positive vote by Congress on
all new regulations.
·
“Tax reform to simplify the income tax system, making
it flatter and more fair” – Repeal the 16th amendment. Implement the “Fair Tax”, capped at a rate of
no more than 25%. Pass S 18. http://fairtax.org/active-legislation/s-18-fair-tax-act-of-2017
Thursday, October 12, 2017
I got yer "Second Amendment" right here
The unabridged right of free citizens to keep and bear arms and
ancillary equipment when and wheresoever they may choose shall not be
infringed by any legislative, administrative, or judicial act by any
government official or functionary at any level of government. The sole
exceptions to this absolute right may be inside clearly labeled areas
of prisons and jails, and inside court rooms in active use, where the
administrators may require free citizens to surrender their arms upon
entry, to be promptly returned upon exit. The penalty for attempted or completed violations of
this right shall be death by firing squad.
Wednesday, October 11, 2017
Vote differently
Our current method of voting, in a winner takes all, or "first past the post" system guarantees two party rule, absurd gerrymandering, and rampant corruption and gaming of the voting process. There simply has to be a better way.
There is. Or, rather, there are numerous different, objectively better ways to vote for our leaders. All we have to do is get rid of the notion of voting for a particular candidate to represent you and your town in the national government. Things simply don't work out that way in the real world. Politicians don't represent their electorate - they represent whoever it is that they think got them elected - the donors and party organizers. Then, there is the problem of the lack of term limits and the machinations of career politicians. Johnny McRino, I'm looking at you, you two faced swine.
I propose that we alter the House of Representatives in the following manner. Let me know what you think.
******
1. Each State shall have a number of junior representatives equal to the number of lawful permanent residents of that State in millions, with a fractional population of 500,000 or more counting as one whole million, with a minimum of one representative per State, regardless of population.
2. Each State shall, not less than three months nor more than six months before the general election, hold party primary elections for every political party registered in that State. A party shall be registered if, by no later than nine months before the general election, the party delivers to the State legislature (or its designated representative) petitions containing the valid signatures of no less than one half of one percent of the lawfully registered voters of that State.
3. Each party primary shall contain a list of at names of potential representatives, not less in number than the total number of representatives to which that State is entitled. No sitting representative may appear on this list. During the primary election, each party's registered voters shall select the order by which these prospective representatives shall appear on a list in the general election.
4. During the general election, each State's lawfully registered voters shall select a single political party. Upon tallying the lawful votes, each party shall be granted a whole number of representatives from that State in accordance to the percentage of total votes received. This number shall then be used to select the representatives from the list of candidates which were selected during the primary process, as listed on the general ballot, starting from number one. Those selected shall serve as that State's junior representatives in the next Congress.
5. During the general election, a senior representative shall also be elected for each State. The list of candidates shall consist of the currently serving junior representatives. Each lawful voter shall make one vote for their preferred candidate from this list. The candidate who receives the most lawful votes shall be that State's senior representative in the next Congress.
******
I also propose increasing the number of senators from each State to three, because the current lack of symmetry offends me. Also, the senate needs more people to argue with each other and sit on committees. And senators shall be chosen by the legislature of their State, and may be impeached and removed by a two-thirds vote of that legislature. No person may be elected to the senate more than twice.
Each senator and representative must be a lawfully registered voter in that State, having been a resident of that State for at least ten years prior to election. Representatives must be at least thirty years old at the time of election, and senators at least forty. Senators and representatives must be free citizens of good moral standing who permanently reside in their home State (which should be the standard for registered voters).
I toy with the idea of having an additional representative or senator chosen by lottery from among the lawfully registered voters of each State, to serve in each two year Congress. I'm not sure, but I'm leaning towards including them in the senate, to keep an eye on the career politicians and provide more warm bodies for committees. After all, can a randomly chosen free citizen possibly be worse than the despicable lot we endure now?
How, then, to elect a president? National popular vote is an option, but this sways the election to the largest cities, ignoring the will of the people in enormous swaths of the country. We could have a proportional vote with multiple candidates from each party, with the winning person getting the presidency, the first runner-up being the president of the Senate, the second runner up being the speaker of the House, the third would become secretary of State, and the fourth runner up would become the secretary of War. In this case of five total winners, each voter could have two or at most three total votes to distribute. This would help ensure than minority voters would still obtain representation among the most powerful positions in the nation. Ir would also help ensure that the people in the most powerful positions come from different parties, ensuring partisan bickering and gridlock. This would be a feature, not a bug.
******
While we're on the topic, let's discuss the Supreme Court. It obviously needs to be changed. Right now, it acts with impunity as the senior actor of the government, overriding the will of the people, the executive branch, and even the plain written words of the law and the constitution itself to suit its members' whims.
I propose that the Supreme Court shall consist of fifteen jurors, each to serve a single fifteen year term in rotation. A new juror shall be selected by a majority vote of the Senate in the month of June of each year. If the Senate fails to select a juror, the House shall select one in the month of July by majority vote. If the House also fails to select a juror, the President shall appoint one in the month of August.
Jurors may be impeached and removed by a two-thirds vote of either the House or the Senate. In such an event, a replacement juror shall be selected to serve the remainder of the term by majority vote of the Senate in the following calendar month. If the senate fails to select a juror, the House shall select one by majority vote the following month. Should the House also fail to select a juror, the president shall appoint one in the next following calendar month.
Any ruling of the Supreme Court may be overturned by a three fifths vote of either the House or the Senate.
The Supreme Court shall make no ruling in opposition to the plain language of the constitution. If, in joint session, a two-thirds vote of Congress agrees that the Supreme Court has violated the constitution in a particular ruling, those members of the Court which approved that ruling shall be immediately arrested and removed from the Court, and each member shall then be executed by their own choice of hanging or firing squad within thirty days, sentence to be carried out by the secretary of State in front of witnesses in the national capital region. Their replacements shall be selected as set forth above.
There is. Or, rather, there are numerous different, objectively better ways to vote for our leaders. All we have to do is get rid of the notion of voting for a particular candidate to represent you and your town in the national government. Things simply don't work out that way in the real world. Politicians don't represent their electorate - they represent whoever it is that they think got them elected - the donors and party organizers. Then, there is the problem of the lack of term limits and the machinations of career politicians. Johnny McRino, I'm looking at you, you two faced swine.
I propose that we alter the House of Representatives in the following manner. Let me know what you think.
******
1. Each State shall have a number of junior representatives equal to the number of lawful permanent residents of that State in millions, with a fractional population of 500,000 or more counting as one whole million, with a minimum of one representative per State, regardless of population.
2. Each State shall, not less than three months nor more than six months before the general election, hold party primary elections for every political party registered in that State. A party shall be registered if, by no later than nine months before the general election, the party delivers to the State legislature (or its designated representative) petitions containing the valid signatures of no less than one half of one percent of the lawfully registered voters of that State.
3. Each party primary shall contain a list of at names of potential representatives, not less in number than the total number of representatives to which that State is entitled. No sitting representative may appear on this list. During the primary election, each party's registered voters shall select the order by which these prospective representatives shall appear on a list in the general election.
4. During the general election, each State's lawfully registered voters shall select a single political party. Upon tallying the lawful votes, each party shall be granted a whole number of representatives from that State in accordance to the percentage of total votes received. This number shall then be used to select the representatives from the list of candidates which were selected during the primary process, as listed on the general ballot, starting from number one. Those selected shall serve as that State's junior representatives in the next Congress.
5. During the general election, a senior representative shall also be elected for each State. The list of candidates shall consist of the currently serving junior representatives. Each lawful voter shall make one vote for their preferred candidate from this list. The candidate who receives the most lawful votes shall be that State's senior representative in the next Congress.
******
I also propose increasing the number of senators from each State to three, because the current lack of symmetry offends me. Also, the senate needs more people to argue with each other and sit on committees. And senators shall be chosen by the legislature of their State, and may be impeached and removed by a two-thirds vote of that legislature. No person may be elected to the senate more than twice.
Each senator and representative must be a lawfully registered voter in that State, having been a resident of that State for at least ten years prior to election. Representatives must be at least thirty years old at the time of election, and senators at least forty. Senators and representatives must be free citizens of good moral standing who permanently reside in their home State (which should be the standard for registered voters).
I toy with the idea of having an additional representative or senator chosen by lottery from among the lawfully registered voters of each State, to serve in each two year Congress. I'm not sure, but I'm leaning towards including them in the senate, to keep an eye on the career politicians and provide more warm bodies for committees. After all, can a randomly chosen free citizen possibly be worse than the despicable lot we endure now?
How, then, to elect a president? National popular vote is an option, but this sways the election to the largest cities, ignoring the will of the people in enormous swaths of the country. We could have a proportional vote with multiple candidates from each party, with the winning person getting the presidency, the first runner-up being the president of the Senate, the second runner up being the speaker of the House, the third would become secretary of State, and the fourth runner up would become the secretary of War. In this case of five total winners, each voter could have two or at most three total votes to distribute. This would help ensure than minority voters would still obtain representation among the most powerful positions in the nation. Ir would also help ensure that the people in the most powerful positions come from different parties, ensuring partisan bickering and gridlock. This would be a feature, not a bug.
******
While we're on the topic, let's discuss the Supreme Court. It obviously needs to be changed. Right now, it acts with impunity as the senior actor of the government, overriding the will of the people, the executive branch, and even the plain written words of the law and the constitution itself to suit its members' whims.
I propose that the Supreme Court shall consist of fifteen jurors, each to serve a single fifteen year term in rotation. A new juror shall be selected by a majority vote of the Senate in the month of June of each year. If the Senate fails to select a juror, the House shall select one in the month of July by majority vote. If the House also fails to select a juror, the President shall appoint one in the month of August.
Jurors may be impeached and removed by a two-thirds vote of either the House or the Senate. In such an event, a replacement juror shall be selected to serve the remainder of the term by majority vote of the Senate in the following calendar month. If the senate fails to select a juror, the House shall select one by majority vote the following month. Should the House also fail to select a juror, the president shall appoint one in the next following calendar month.
Any ruling of the Supreme Court may be overturned by a three fifths vote of either the House or the Senate.
The Supreme Court shall make no ruling in opposition to the plain language of the constitution. If, in joint session, a two-thirds vote of Congress agrees that the Supreme Court has violated the constitution in a particular ruling, those members of the Court which approved that ruling shall be immediately arrested and removed from the Court, and each member shall then be executed by their own choice of hanging or firing squad within thirty days, sentence to be carried out by the secretary of State in front of witnesses in the national capital region. Their replacements shall be selected as set forth above.
Sunday, October 8, 2017
Support Alt-Hero, make a liberal's head explode
Support the Alt-Hero project. It's a series of comic books specifically designed to entertain while pissing off liberals, progressives, and anybody who supports the EU and globalization.
https://freestartr.com/project/althero/
They only need a couple hundred more backers to qualify for volumes 7, 8, and 9. What are you waiting for? Get over there and throw them a few bucks. Liberals aren't afraid to back every silly cause - at least this one produces something with actual value!
https://freestartr.com/project/althero/
They only need a couple hundred more backers to qualify for volumes 7, 8, and 9. What are you waiting for? Get over there and throw them a few bucks. Liberals aren't afraid to back every silly cause - at least this one produces something with actual value!
Saturday, October 7, 2017
The equality fallacy
All men are created equal. And then they are born.
All men may be equal in the eyes of the Lord, but that does not make all men identical. Men are no more equal in moral worth than they are equal in intelligence or height. Some men are saints, some "need killing", most lie in the vast gulf between these two extremes.
Equality has no fixed meaning when used in reference to humans. Equality before the law is only a concept in America, and it is indifferently enforced even here in these United States. For reference, see the continued freedom of Mr. and Mrs. Clinton, known liars, cheats, and suspected mass murderers. (The Clintons can probably be tied to more suspicious deaths than Tony Soprano. How do you think 'Arkancide' came to be a term?)
Equality of outcomes is a particularly communist/socialist concept. According to this thought, every person is exactly identical to every other person, and if there are differences among and between people, this must be the result of hostile forces. You can see the results of this in the pages of history, and in the piles of skulls and mass graves every where communism has been implemented. You can translate modern "progressive" writings and speeches as translations from old communist writings. They simply replace "proletariat" with "oppressed" or "minority", "capitalism" with "patriarchy" or "privilege", and "bourgeoisie" with "white cis hetero Christian man".
Equality of all humans everywhere is also a particularly specious concept of modern, progressive-taught thought. The existence of different races of men is as obvious as the existence of different breeds of dogs. This does not make different dogs not be dogs, any more than it makes different races of men not be men. It simply makes them different. Just as different breeds of dogs have inherent physical and behavioral traits (bred into them over many generations), so do different races of men exhibit different physical and behavioral traits. The simple fact makes liberal/progressive heads explode with (un)-righteous anger and indignation.
Most of the problems in current-year America are caused by the hostile actions of communists and their 'useful idiot' allies, the liberal-progressives. The Soviet Union could not attack America physically, so they spent years debating a careful strategy of attacking America spiritually. If America were strong because of its culture of freedom, then the way to attack America was through its culture. They have used the culture of individual rights and freedoms to attack the very idea of individual rights and freedoms. In the name of making all men equal, the first separate all men into groups, all members of which are to be equal and identical. This is why they screech like harpies whenever a man dares to act or speak differently from the role scripted for his particular group or sub-group.
This fascination with 'equality' meaning 'identicality' has destroyed American culture through the hammers of 'racism' and 'sexism' It is obvious to any observer that blacks and whites have noticeably different cultures in these United States. If you deny this, then ask yourself why you can identify the race of a telephone caller with 90% accuracy? Black culture is obviously unequal to white culture in America. Blacks excel in sports and do very well in music (leaving my distaste for rap so-called music, it does seem to be popular). However, they are by every measure, compared to whites, dumb, violent, and criminal. Progressives decry the disproportional arrest and incarceration of black men, as if it had nothing to do with the actions of those black men. True fact - cops are more likely to shoot a white offender than a black offender. The problem lies in that there are so very many black offenders, and they are so disproportionately likely to violently resist arrest. Especially now that the liberal/progressive media and democrat party (but I repeat myself) have spent years telling blacks that police are inherently racist and just want to kill black men.
Blacks are less intelligent than whites - the racial gap in performance in schools has never declined, no matter how much money has been spent attempting to educate blacks and whites together. The loss of Christian morality and discipline in the schools has also been counterproductive. Education is impossible without discipline, and the first and ever-present topic of education should be self discipline. Go to any school with more than a token number of black children, and you will see them disrupting classrooms with poor behavior, and holding back education with lack of intellect. Separate but equal education was inherently more equal than the current mess, and observably had much better results for both blacks and whites.
Boys and girls are different. This is obvious from birth. I can speak authoritatively on this subject, having raised one of each of my own. Feminism is the strange proposition that girls are the equal of boys, that boys and girls are in fact identical, and that girls need special privileges to keep up with boys, that boys are defective girls, and that all girls should act like boys and all boys should act like girls. I love my children equally, as any father should. I don't pretend that they are identical, physically, mentally, or emotionally. Feminists adore gays, because gay boys and girls exhibit traits contrary to their sex. They adore so-called transgenders, because their insanity knows no bounds in attempting to emulate the opposite sex. The progressive lunacy of idolizing gays and other, even more mentally unbalanced people has grown to the point where it is affecting the mental health and physical well being of numerous, easily influenced teens. "Sudden onset gender dysphoria" did not exist before ten years ago, and now it is spreading like accusations of witchcraft in Salem, and for many of the same reasons. Congratulations, feminists, you have succeeded in driving thousands of boys and girls insane, set back relations between the sexes to what you imagined the Victorian era to have been like, and caused birth rates to drop below replacement levels in every Western country. Feminism truly is cancer.
All men are created equal, but then they are born. Except for the majority of black children in America, which are murdered in the womb. (Abortion is the leading cause of death of black Americans, eclipsing the next ten most common causes combined.)
All men may be equal in the eyes of the Lord, but that does not make all men identical. Men are no more equal in moral worth than they are equal in intelligence or height. Some men are saints, some "need killing", most lie in the vast gulf between these two extremes.
Equality has no fixed meaning when used in reference to humans. Equality before the law is only a concept in America, and it is indifferently enforced even here in these United States. For reference, see the continued freedom of Mr. and Mrs. Clinton, known liars, cheats, and suspected mass murderers. (The Clintons can probably be tied to more suspicious deaths than Tony Soprano. How do you think 'Arkancide' came to be a term?)
Equality of outcomes is a particularly communist/socialist concept. According to this thought, every person is exactly identical to every other person, and if there are differences among and between people, this must be the result of hostile forces. You can see the results of this in the pages of history, and in the piles of skulls and mass graves every where communism has been implemented. You can translate modern "progressive" writings and speeches as translations from old communist writings. They simply replace "proletariat" with "oppressed" or "minority", "capitalism" with "patriarchy" or "privilege", and "bourgeoisie" with "white cis hetero Christian man".
Equality of all humans everywhere is also a particularly specious concept of modern, progressive-taught thought. The existence of different races of men is as obvious as the existence of different breeds of dogs. This does not make different dogs not be dogs, any more than it makes different races of men not be men. It simply makes them different. Just as different breeds of dogs have inherent physical and behavioral traits (bred into them over many generations), so do different races of men exhibit different physical and behavioral traits. The simple fact makes liberal/progressive heads explode with (un)-righteous anger and indignation.
Most of the problems in current-year America are caused by the hostile actions of communists and their 'useful idiot' allies, the liberal-progressives. The Soviet Union could not attack America physically, so they spent years debating a careful strategy of attacking America spiritually. If America were strong because of its culture of freedom, then the way to attack America was through its culture. They have used the culture of individual rights and freedoms to attack the very idea of individual rights and freedoms. In the name of making all men equal, the first separate all men into groups, all members of which are to be equal and identical. This is why they screech like harpies whenever a man dares to act or speak differently from the role scripted for his particular group or sub-group.
This fascination with 'equality' meaning 'identicality' has destroyed American culture through the hammers of 'racism' and 'sexism' It is obvious to any observer that blacks and whites have noticeably different cultures in these United States. If you deny this, then ask yourself why you can identify the race of a telephone caller with 90% accuracy? Black culture is obviously unequal to white culture in America. Blacks excel in sports and do very well in music (leaving my distaste for rap so-called music, it does seem to be popular). However, they are by every measure, compared to whites, dumb, violent, and criminal. Progressives decry the disproportional arrest and incarceration of black men, as if it had nothing to do with the actions of those black men. True fact - cops are more likely to shoot a white offender than a black offender. The problem lies in that there are so very many black offenders, and they are so disproportionately likely to violently resist arrest. Especially now that the liberal/progressive media and democrat party (but I repeat myself) have spent years telling blacks that police are inherently racist and just want to kill black men.
Blacks are less intelligent than whites - the racial gap in performance in schools has never declined, no matter how much money has been spent attempting to educate blacks and whites together. The loss of Christian morality and discipline in the schools has also been counterproductive. Education is impossible without discipline, and the first and ever-present topic of education should be self discipline. Go to any school with more than a token number of black children, and you will see them disrupting classrooms with poor behavior, and holding back education with lack of intellect. Separate but equal education was inherently more equal than the current mess, and observably had much better results for both blacks and whites.
Boys and girls are different. This is obvious from birth. I can speak authoritatively on this subject, having raised one of each of my own. Feminism is the strange proposition that girls are the equal of boys, that boys and girls are in fact identical, and that girls need special privileges to keep up with boys, that boys are defective girls, and that all girls should act like boys and all boys should act like girls. I love my children equally, as any father should. I don't pretend that they are identical, physically, mentally, or emotionally. Feminists adore gays, because gay boys and girls exhibit traits contrary to their sex. They adore so-called transgenders, because their insanity knows no bounds in attempting to emulate the opposite sex. The progressive lunacy of idolizing gays and other, even more mentally unbalanced people has grown to the point where it is affecting the mental health and physical well being of numerous, easily influenced teens. "Sudden onset gender dysphoria" did not exist before ten years ago, and now it is spreading like accusations of witchcraft in Salem, and for many of the same reasons. Congratulations, feminists, you have succeeded in driving thousands of boys and girls insane, set back relations between the sexes to what you imagined the Victorian era to have been like, and caused birth rates to drop below replacement levels in every Western country. Feminism truly is cancer.
All men are created equal, but then they are born. Except for the majority of black children in America, which are murdered in the womb. (Abortion is the leading cause of death of black Americans, eclipsing the next ten most common causes combined.)
Monday, October 2, 2017
Why are health care prices outrageous?
This was originally a comment at Peter Grant's blog. Go check him out. He's a very good writer of science fiction, western, and fantasy novels. https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/
----
Regarding health care - That which can not continue indefinitely, must eventually stop. The predicted stop date is between 2032 and 2034. By that time, social security expenses will occupy 100% of the federal budget. Medicare/aid expenses will occupy 100% of the federal budget. Debt payments will occupy 100% of the federal budget.
That's a lot of 100 percents there.
Health care expenses are driven by various factors - the relative paucity of trained doctors, ridiculous regulations (did you know that medicare forced over half of all hospitals in America to close?), ridiculous lawsuit, and the corrupt death spiral of the insurance industry.
I'm not an opponent of insurance. I think it's pure, free market capitalism. What I'm upset about is the rampant corruption that the health insurance industry, and this most definitely includes medicare/aid, forces on the health providers. Over half of all medical spending is simply insurance processing/compliance. Prices are artificially inflated (massively, in some cases) so that insurance companies (remember, this includes the government) can show that they negotiated huge price concessions.
Large hospitals, pharma companies, etc. can afford the kickbacks and bribery to play the game and win. The traditional neighborhood practice can not - that's why so many of them have closed. Doctors don't have individual practices now - they've organised to share administrative expenses. There is a reason why you can't get an estimate of how much a procedure will cost - the doctors simply don't know, because so much billing is tied up in red tape corruption. They doctors don't generally like this, but it is how the game is played, if they want to survive.
This is one of the reasons that America isn't training more doctors now than we were in the 1960's. Another is the AMA, which like all unions wants to keep the supply of skilled labor low so that wages can be kept high. Did you know that the US has added exactly one new medical school in the last 50 years?
With all the expenses that doctors have, which includes student loans, general practitioners simply don't make enough money. Most of them would be better off as plumbers. "Rich doctor" is a myth these days, unless you're an in-demand specialist or practicing in Beverly Hills.
So many problems, no simple solutions. Everything goes to hell in a hand basket within the next 15 years or so, and we can not count on the current quality of politicians to do a single blessed thing about it until it is far too late to make any positive difference. We can assuredly count on our "friends" on the left to make everything worse, though.
----
Regarding health care - That which can not continue indefinitely, must eventually stop. The predicted stop date is between 2032 and 2034. By that time, social security expenses will occupy 100% of the federal budget. Medicare/aid expenses will occupy 100% of the federal budget. Debt payments will occupy 100% of the federal budget.
That's a lot of 100 percents there.
Health care expenses are driven by various factors - the relative paucity of trained doctors, ridiculous regulations (did you know that medicare forced over half of all hospitals in America to close?), ridiculous lawsuit, and the corrupt death spiral of the insurance industry.
I'm not an opponent of insurance. I think it's pure, free market capitalism. What I'm upset about is the rampant corruption that the health insurance industry, and this most definitely includes medicare/aid, forces on the health providers. Over half of all medical spending is simply insurance processing/compliance. Prices are artificially inflated (massively, in some cases) so that insurance companies (remember, this includes the government) can show that they negotiated huge price concessions.
Large hospitals, pharma companies, etc. can afford the kickbacks and bribery to play the game and win. The traditional neighborhood practice can not - that's why so many of them have closed. Doctors don't have individual practices now - they've organised to share administrative expenses. There is a reason why you can't get an estimate of how much a procedure will cost - the doctors simply don't know, because so much billing is tied up in red tape corruption. They doctors don't generally like this, but it is how the game is played, if they want to survive.
This is one of the reasons that America isn't training more doctors now than we were in the 1960's. Another is the AMA, which like all unions wants to keep the supply of skilled labor low so that wages can be kept high. Did you know that the US has added exactly one new medical school in the last 50 years?
With all the expenses that doctors have, which includes student loans, general practitioners simply don't make enough money. Most of them would be better off as plumbers. "Rich doctor" is a myth these days, unless you're an in-demand specialist or practicing in Beverly Hills.
So many problems, no simple solutions. Everything goes to hell in a hand basket within the next 15 years or so, and we can not count on the current quality of politicians to do a single blessed thing about it until it is far too late to make any positive difference. We can assuredly count on our "friends" on the left to make everything worse, though.
Friday, September 22, 2017
Wherein I pontificate and prognosticate
The US Constitution is dead. It's fertilizing the soil, pushing up the daisies. It's an ex-document. It's been dead for at least 80 years (killed by progressive socialists) , and its rotten stench is what's wrong with America now.
So, how do we make a new constitution, and what should it have in it? The previous Constitution (RIP) was written by a large group of passionate men who agreed and disagreed on principles. They had recently fought a war for independence from a great power, separating themselves forever from the motherland. They had different backgrounds and interests. What they had in common was a vision of a free and prosperous America, with a very limited federal government holding the States together and protecting them from foreign attack. The federal government was to handle foreign affairs, war (also a type of foreign affair), settle disputes between the states, and set basic standards (related to settling disputes). Oh, and deliver the mail. That's about it.
How do we get back to that limited vision of government? Is it even desirable, not to mention possible?
I believe the the US is headed for a reckoning, simply because I keep my eyes and ears open, and have some basic background in reality and history. Stein's Law will always hold true - if something can't go on forever, it must eventually stop. The US is $20 trillion dollars in debt now. The national debt doubles roughly every eight years - two presidential terms. Did you know that in 2015, debt payments took up over 7% of all federal revenues? That fiscal year, we spent $229 billion paying for old debt, and added $583 billion in new debt. Mandatory spending (medicare/aid, social security, welfare, etc.) occupied 76% of revenues. The US government spent 50% more on health care alone than it did on defense that year. And this was before the Obamacare boondoggle spending had really started.
This can't continue. Therefore, it must end. According to current projections, by 2033, debt payments will consume all federal revenues. By 2033, social security will consume all federal revenues. By 2033, health care spending will consume all federal revenues. By 2033, all other welfare programs combined will consume all federal revenues. Do the math. We're talking about mandatory spending equaling 400% of revenues. This simply can't work. But it's what we will stumble into if we don't change things now.
By now, I mean by 2020. During President Trump's first term, it will be possible to fix these problems, but the solutions will be painful. By 2024, the solutions will be excruciatingly, "Mommy make the bad man stop" painful. After then, failure mode is inevitable. None of this is new. Ross
Perot ran on a platform of fixing these problems, which were easily foreseen.
We must elect new politicians to fix this mess. We can't count on the same old ones - they've been ignoring the coming catastrophe for literally decades. But we clearly seem unable to do so. So we're going to have to shake up, or break, the political status quo.
One way is with new parties. After all, small parties have been the lifeblood of American politics since the founding. Not. For better or worse, the American system doesn't seem to admit or tolerate the existence of more than two major political parties. It's been tried.
Another way is to influence the existing parties to do better. We see how well the Republican party learned its lesson after the 2006-2008 election cycles. They've gained the majorities in both houses, as well as the Preidency, and are now using their power to do everything their base wanted them to do. President Trump has accomplished his meager goals of building a border fence and repealing Obamacare, which every Republican candidate vowed to repeal and/or replace. Train loads of illegal alien invaders are daily being repatriated to Mexico, from whence they came. Immigration by anti-civilizational Muslims (that is to say, all Muslims) has been banned, and those who came in before are being sent back to their homelands. The Tea Party wing of the Republican caucus is respected, admired, and nearly revered by the rest of the party members, as well as the donor class. Oh wait, none of that has happened. None of it is likely to happen. All of it needs to happen for America to survive as America.
That leaves few legal options. Mark Levin recommended a convention of the States to propose amendments to the Constitution. I do believe this idea is the last, best hope for a peaceful resolution to the current crises. But I have no faith that it will actually happen at all, much less in time to do any good.
You see, I understand history and basic human nature. No politician is ever going to upset an apple cart to prevent a catastrophe that can't be seen from an earthworm's eye view. Where's the money in it for them? That leaves the historic method of solving these problems.
Rivers of blood. Given the current population, make that oceans of blood.
On the other side of this ocean is a shore which we can not see. There is a shore, of course. Not all of us will reach that shore - some of us must be sacrificed to the sea. I can see a future, twenty or thity years from now, where the population of these United States is between 150-200 million souls. This future involves over a hundred million dead or displaced people, and results in a new and different America. It might possibly be a better place, but that's not guaranteed.
I can also see a future, twenty or thirty years from now, where the population is over 400 million souls, a minority of which consider themselves American. There will still be a place on world maps called America, but the America that we know and love will be dead. It will have dies by assisted suicide, as it lacked the will to live. When it is preferable to kneel before the stranger's knife than to acknowledge the existence of the stranger, is the final act murder or suicide?
We can change our Constitution now, or after veritable oceans of blood have been spilt; or we can wait for strangers to dictate how we shall live in what used to be our own lands. The only thing we can't do is continue on as we have been. That is not an option. Stein's Law always holds.
Changes, they are a' coming. Which way will the wind blow your family?
So, how do we make a new constitution, and what should it have in it? The previous Constitution (RIP) was written by a large group of passionate men who agreed and disagreed on principles. They had recently fought a war for independence from a great power, separating themselves forever from the motherland. They had different backgrounds and interests. What they had in common was a vision of a free and prosperous America, with a very limited federal government holding the States together and protecting them from foreign attack. The federal government was to handle foreign affairs, war (also a type of foreign affair), settle disputes between the states, and set basic standards (related to settling disputes). Oh, and deliver the mail. That's about it.
How do we get back to that limited vision of government? Is it even desirable, not to mention possible?
I believe the the US is headed for a reckoning, simply because I keep my eyes and ears open, and have some basic background in reality and history. Stein's Law will always hold true - if something can't go on forever, it must eventually stop. The US is $20 trillion dollars in debt now. The national debt doubles roughly every eight years - two presidential terms. Did you know that in 2015, debt payments took up over 7% of all federal revenues? That fiscal year, we spent $229 billion paying for old debt, and added $583 billion in new debt. Mandatory spending (medicare/aid, social security, welfare, etc.) occupied 76% of revenues. The US government spent 50% more on health care alone than it did on defense that year. And this was before the Obamacare boondoggle spending had really started.
This can't continue. Therefore, it must end. According to current projections, by 2033, debt payments will consume all federal revenues. By 2033, social security will consume all federal revenues. By 2033, health care spending will consume all federal revenues. By 2033, all other welfare programs combined will consume all federal revenues. Do the math. We're talking about mandatory spending equaling 400% of revenues. This simply can't work. But it's what we will stumble into if we don't change things now.
By now, I mean by 2020. During President Trump's first term, it will be possible to fix these problems, but the solutions will be painful. By 2024, the solutions will be excruciatingly, "Mommy make the bad man stop" painful. After then, failure mode is inevitable. None of this is new. Ross
Perot ran on a platform of fixing these problems, which were easily foreseen.
We must elect new politicians to fix this mess. We can't count on the same old ones - they've been ignoring the coming catastrophe for literally decades. But we clearly seem unable to do so. So we're going to have to shake up, or break, the political status quo.
One way is with new parties. After all, small parties have been the lifeblood of American politics since the founding. Not. For better or worse, the American system doesn't seem to admit or tolerate the existence of more than two major political parties. It's been tried.
Another way is to influence the existing parties to do better. We see how well the Republican party learned its lesson after the 2006-2008 election cycles. They've gained the majorities in both houses, as well as the Preidency, and are now using their power to do everything their base wanted them to do. President Trump has accomplished his meager goals of building a border fence and repealing Obamacare, which every Republican candidate vowed to repeal and/or replace. Train loads of illegal alien invaders are daily being repatriated to Mexico, from whence they came. Immigration by anti-civilizational Muslims (that is to say, all Muslims) has been banned, and those who came in before are being sent back to their homelands. The Tea Party wing of the Republican caucus is respected, admired, and nearly revered by the rest of the party members, as well as the donor class. Oh wait, none of that has happened. None of it is likely to happen. All of it needs to happen for America to survive as America.
That leaves few legal options. Mark Levin recommended a convention of the States to propose amendments to the Constitution. I do believe this idea is the last, best hope for a peaceful resolution to the current crises. But I have no faith that it will actually happen at all, much less in time to do any good.
You see, I understand history and basic human nature. No politician is ever going to upset an apple cart to prevent a catastrophe that can't be seen from an earthworm's eye view. Where's the money in it for them? That leaves the historic method of solving these problems.
Rivers of blood. Given the current population, make that oceans of blood.
On the other side of this ocean is a shore which we can not see. There is a shore, of course. Not all of us will reach that shore - some of us must be sacrificed to the sea. I can see a future, twenty or thity years from now, where the population of these United States is between 150-200 million souls. This future involves over a hundred million dead or displaced people, and results in a new and different America. It might possibly be a better place, but that's not guaranteed.
I can also see a future, twenty or thirty years from now, where the population is over 400 million souls, a minority of which consider themselves American. There will still be a place on world maps called America, but the America that we know and love will be dead. It will have dies by assisted suicide, as it lacked the will to live. When it is preferable to kneel before the stranger's knife than to acknowledge the existence of the stranger, is the final act murder or suicide?
We can change our Constitution now, or after veritable oceans of blood have been spilt; or we can wait for strangers to dictate how we shall live in what used to be our own lands. The only thing we can't do is continue on as we have been. That is not an option. Stein's Law always holds.
Changes, they are a' coming. Which way will the wind blow your family?
Thursday, September 14, 2017
So there I was, knee deep in Albania...
So there I was, knee deep in mud in Albania in the spring of '99 in support of the Kosovo war. (Others may have not even noticed it happening.) My team go a call to go out in support of another unit, leaving in 30 minutes. It was an overnight outing, out and back to the base area. We were honestly looking forward to spending some time out of the mud.
Interesting side note - the Tirana airport is built on flat land between the mountains and the sea, where two rivers meet. The area has been used as sheep pasture for all of recorded history, and probably long before that. Guess what happens here in the spring, when the rains come and the snow melts? Now, guess what it smells like. And how deep it is when thousands of troops walk on it for weeks on end, not to mention vehicles. This is where I learned the real reason for tracked vehicles. Over 90% of the deployed troops developed foot infections and injuries. MY boss and I personally saved one young woman's life one night near the port-a johns. Which, incidentally, didn't get emptied for three weeks, because the honey trucks couldn't drive through the mud. You couldn't dig latrines in it, either.
Anyways, we threw our rucks in the truck, along with a couple boxes of MREs and jerry cans of fuel and water, and spent the next twenty minutes getting the truck moving. (You know the mud is bad when you have to dig down so you can open the doors of a HMMWV.) We eventually got moving, and found the unit before it moved out the gate. The convoy was about an hour late, because the planners aren't the ones who have to dig the vehicles out of the mud. So, off we went into the evening light, looking to our overnight excursion.
We came back 40 days later. We hadn't packed up any cots, so we slept sitting up in the seats. (The driver got to sleep on the hood.) The body armor and helmets really helped to keep us warm at night, because we couldn't use the sleeping bags while sitting up in those cramped seats. I did mention that it was spring, right? Forty degrees and rainy.
Lessons learned - Shared misery builds strong teams. You learn to make do, or do without. What you need is really a small fraction of what you want. Bring everything every time, because you never know. Food, water, fuel, ponchos, and dry socks are necessities.
Interesting side note - the Tirana airport is built on flat land between the mountains and the sea, where two rivers meet. The area has been used as sheep pasture for all of recorded history, and probably long before that. Guess what happens here in the spring, when the rains come and the snow melts? Now, guess what it smells like. And how deep it is when thousands of troops walk on it for weeks on end, not to mention vehicles. This is where I learned the real reason for tracked vehicles. Over 90% of the deployed troops developed foot infections and injuries. MY boss and I personally saved one young woman's life one night near the port-a johns. Which, incidentally, didn't get emptied for three weeks, because the honey trucks couldn't drive through the mud. You couldn't dig latrines in it, either.
Anyways, we threw our rucks in the truck, along with a couple boxes of MREs and jerry cans of fuel and water, and spent the next twenty minutes getting the truck moving. (You know the mud is bad when you have to dig down so you can open the doors of a HMMWV.) We eventually got moving, and found the unit before it moved out the gate. The convoy was about an hour late, because the planners aren't the ones who have to dig the vehicles out of the mud. So, off we went into the evening light, looking to our overnight excursion.
We came back 40 days later. We hadn't packed up any cots, so we slept sitting up in the seats. (The driver got to sleep on the hood.) The body armor and helmets really helped to keep us warm at night, because we couldn't use the sleeping bags while sitting up in those cramped seats. I did mention that it was spring, right? Forty degrees and rainy.
Lessons learned - Shared misery builds strong teams. You learn to make do, or do without. What you need is really a small fraction of what you want. Bring everything every time, because you never know. Food, water, fuel, ponchos, and dry socks are necessities.
Whither quantum gravity?
Ah, the secular Holy Grail of science - quantum gravity. This, along with joining gravity with the other four forces into a Theory of Everything, has been sought by physicists for decades. In teaching myself about relativity and quantum mechanics, I kept running across speculations into this specialty field over and over. It asks the most fundamental questions possible - what is mass, what is matter, what are space and time, what is gravity, how does any of this happen, and so forth. Deep, deep questions without answers.
I now say, not quite so humbly, that in my learning and thought experiments that I seem to have accidentally come up with a workable theory of quantum gravity. It is a summary of what I've been thinking and writing about here on this blog, which almost nobody ever reads. (I have yet to receive a single comment here.) The trick lies in thinking differently and attempting to see clearly. Everything is part of everything else. All things are related. You can't think about gravity without accounting for everything else.
Gravity is not a force. This is nothing new. Einstein posited it in his famous papers. Gravity is not a force - it is an effect. People researching quantum gravity seem to keep forgetting this. They keep looking for gravitons. For there to be gravitons, there would have to be a force of gravity. There is no such force. So, stop thinking about gravitons, and as gravity as a an attractive force. It simply isn't.
Gravity is an effect of "curved space-time". What is this space-time, and how does it curve? It is simply another field. It does not curve or bend like a sheet of cellophane, but it does have energy gradients. The key here is that is does not have a base energy of zero. It has a perfectly enormous base energy. This is because every other field, every other force, every bit of energy, mass, and matter is subtracted from the space-time energy field (STEF). What is the base value of STEF? I have no idea - I'm not a real physicist, and I haven't done calculus since I was a freshman in college several decades ago. (I keep meaning to. I've got a calculus book in sight right now.)
The key here is that STEF is quantized. All other fields draw energy from it, but only in discreet (very tiny) chunks. This energy draw is then spread across the energy field in an inverse-square fashion, because otherwise space-time would be full of discontinuities, which clearly doesn't happen. This happens instantly, and has an infinite range. STEF is not subject to speed of light restrictions. (Neither is any other quantum field. I have no idea why scientists simply don't like to talk about it, or even admit it openly.) Let me say that again - STEF , like all quantum fields, is infinitely large and infinitely fast. Waves in energy fields, on the other hand, are restricted to light speed transmission.
So, we have a quantized field, from which all other energy is drawn, with an inverse-square energy gradient. If you think of the energy levels and gradient as a parabolic slope, we're on the right track. What is the point of STEF? What does it control? Why does it exist? All fields have a purpose. STEF's purpose is to control velocity. And, incidentally, perceived space and time.
Velocity is a spherical standing wave in STEF. The lowest energy part of the sphere lies directly in the line of velocity, and the di in energy corresponds directly to the velocity. The highest energy (higher than ambient) lies directly opposite the direction of motion. This is why particles travel in a straight line, all other things being equal. It's easier to think about in two dimensions, as a sine-like wave, lower in front, higher behind.
The height of the wave corresponds to the energy increase or decrease in emitted particles. They gain energy from initially going downhill, and lose energy with an initial uphill climb. Remember, this effect is actually spherical, and the energy loss or gain corresponds exactly to the predictions of existing physics. Note that there is no loss when a particle is emitted at ninety degrees to the direction of motion.
The slope of the wave (related to the wave length) corresponds to the dictates of relativistic motion. The cosine of the slope is the speed (relative to c), and the sine of the slope is the perceived space and time (as a fraction of a theoretical, non-moving reference). I've shown the math in other posts, but it is fairly trivial if even I can do it.
Where does gravity come in? Well, gravity is the existing slope of STEF, upon which our particle is creating a standing wave. You add (superimpose, for the afficionado) the two to get a final motion. Any slope in STEF will result in a particle's standing wave curving 'downslope' (unless it was already headed in that exact direction, of course) and gaining energy. A particle moving 'upslope' will also curve (unless it is moving exactly upslope), and lose energy in the process. Remember, all energy is quantized, so it can only be gained or lost in discrete, very tiny bits.
We call this effect "gravity". No force carrying particle needed, because it's not a force.
Please note that the theory also works with a decreasing size of the standing wave. This decrease in wave length increases the frequency, which is the same as increasing the energy of the standing wave. This property helps to explain perceived space and time differences, as well as 'relativistic mass'. Space (and thus, time) ahead of the particle (geometric center point of the standing wave) contracts, and energy increases. Note again, that at ninety degrees to the path of motion, the standing wave is at zero. There are no relativistic effects at that precise angle. And the energy increases dramatically directly behind the particle, causing photons emitted in that direction to lose large amounts of energy.
The actual energy lost or gained by an emitted photon is equal to the height of the velocity curve, divided by the wavelength of that curve. In other words, amplitude times frequency - the definition of the energy of a wave. (I just realized that part while writing this.)
Everything checks. Everything explained. No apparent holes or contradictions. Simple and elegant. Quantum gravity, QED. Tell your friends.
I now say, not quite so humbly, that in my learning and thought experiments that I seem to have accidentally come up with a workable theory of quantum gravity. It is a summary of what I've been thinking and writing about here on this blog, which almost nobody ever reads. (I have yet to receive a single comment here.) The trick lies in thinking differently and attempting to see clearly. Everything is part of everything else. All things are related. You can't think about gravity without accounting for everything else.
Gravity is not a force. This is nothing new. Einstein posited it in his famous papers. Gravity is not a force - it is an effect. People researching quantum gravity seem to keep forgetting this. They keep looking for gravitons. For there to be gravitons, there would have to be a force of gravity. There is no such force. So, stop thinking about gravitons, and as gravity as a an attractive force. It simply isn't.
Gravity is an effect of "curved space-time". What is this space-time, and how does it curve? It is simply another field. It does not curve or bend like a sheet of cellophane, but it does have energy gradients. The key here is that is does not have a base energy of zero. It has a perfectly enormous base energy. This is because every other field, every other force, every bit of energy, mass, and matter is subtracted from the space-time energy field (STEF). What is the base value of STEF? I have no idea - I'm not a real physicist, and I haven't done calculus since I was a freshman in college several decades ago. (I keep meaning to. I've got a calculus book in sight right now.)
The key here is that STEF is quantized. All other fields draw energy from it, but only in discreet (very tiny) chunks. This energy draw is then spread across the energy field in an inverse-square fashion, because otherwise space-time would be full of discontinuities, which clearly doesn't happen. This happens instantly, and has an infinite range. STEF is not subject to speed of light restrictions. (Neither is any other quantum field. I have no idea why scientists simply don't like to talk about it, or even admit it openly.) Let me say that again - STEF , like all quantum fields, is infinitely large and infinitely fast. Waves in energy fields, on the other hand, are restricted to light speed transmission.
So, we have a quantized field, from which all other energy is drawn, with an inverse-square energy gradient. If you think of the energy levels and gradient as a parabolic slope, we're on the right track. What is the point of STEF? What does it control? Why does it exist? All fields have a purpose. STEF's purpose is to control velocity. And, incidentally, perceived space and time.
Velocity is a spherical standing wave in STEF. The lowest energy part of the sphere lies directly in the line of velocity, and the di in energy corresponds directly to the velocity. The highest energy (higher than ambient) lies directly opposite the direction of motion. This is why particles travel in a straight line, all other things being equal. It's easier to think about in two dimensions, as a sine-like wave, lower in front, higher behind.
The height of the wave corresponds to the energy increase or decrease in emitted particles. They gain energy from initially going downhill, and lose energy with an initial uphill climb. Remember, this effect is actually spherical, and the energy loss or gain corresponds exactly to the predictions of existing physics. Note that there is no loss when a particle is emitted at ninety degrees to the direction of motion.
The slope of the wave (related to the wave length) corresponds to the dictates of relativistic motion. The cosine of the slope is the speed (relative to c), and the sine of the slope is the perceived space and time (as a fraction of a theoretical, non-moving reference). I've shown the math in other posts, but it is fairly trivial if even I can do it.
Where does gravity come in? Well, gravity is the existing slope of STEF, upon which our particle is creating a standing wave. You add (superimpose, for the afficionado) the two to get a final motion. Any slope in STEF will result in a particle's standing wave curving 'downslope' (unless it was already headed in that exact direction, of course) and gaining energy. A particle moving 'upslope' will also curve (unless it is moving exactly upslope), and lose energy in the process. Remember, all energy is quantized, so it can only be gained or lost in discrete, very tiny bits.
We call this effect "gravity". No force carrying particle needed, because it's not a force.
Please note that the theory also works with a decreasing size of the standing wave. This decrease in wave length increases the frequency, which is the same as increasing the energy of the standing wave. This property helps to explain perceived space and time differences, as well as 'relativistic mass'. Space (and thus, time) ahead of the particle (geometric center point of the standing wave) contracts, and energy increases. Note again, that at ninety degrees to the path of motion, the standing wave is at zero. There are no relativistic effects at that precise angle. And the energy increases dramatically directly behind the particle, causing photons emitted in that direction to lose large amounts of energy.
The actual energy lost or gained by an emitted photon is equal to the height of the velocity curve, divided by the wavelength of that curve. In other words, amplitude times frequency - the definition of the energy of a wave. (I just realized that part while writing this.)
Everything checks. Everything explained. No apparent holes or contradictions. Simple and elegant. Quantum gravity, QED. Tell your friends.
Monday, August 28, 2017
The EnLeftening of tech
The EnLeftening of tech and the internet continues. Today's victim is "Stuff Black People Don't Like."
https://www.blogger.com/blogin.g?blogspotURL=http://stuffblackpeopledontlike.blogspot.com/
This time, Google was smart enough to not cancel the web page, or retract the naming rights. It simply blocks all access to the web page to those not specifically invited to read it. Which is, of course, no one except the owner, who may not even know this is going on.
The control-left continues its march through the tech industry and the internet. You know, the internet that famously "treats censorship as damage and routes around it."
Leftism is a jealous god, and will admit the existence of no others.
https://www.blogger.com/blogin.g?blogspotURL=http://stuffblackpeopledontlike.blogspot.com/
This time, Google was smart enough to not cancel the web page, or retract the naming rights. It simply blocks all access to the web page to those not specifically invited to read it. Which is, of course, no one except the owner, who may not even know this is going on.
The control-left continues its march through the tech industry and the internet. You know, the internet that famously "treats censorship as damage and routes around it."
Leftism is a jealous god, and will admit the existence of no others.
Sunday, July 30, 2017
Why does the stock market keep rising?
Why does the stock market keep rising, setting record after record? The economy really isn't that good. All the experts agree that most stocks are wildly overpriced, compared to the performance of the companies the stocks represent. The global economy is showing sure and certain signs of a slow down. So why does the market keep rising?
Simple. Supply and demand. In this case, the supply of money and demand for stocks keeps growing, while the actual number of stocks stays relatively stagnant. (Yes, this is a bit oversimplified, but still effectively true.) People, millions of people, have money taken out of their paychecks every two weeks or so. This money is transferred into their retirement accounts, whatever form they might take. This money is then managed by brokers (who take their cut) and invested in stocks, bonds, and money market accounts. Of these, stocks are the traditional money makers. The bond market is terrible, and has been for years - one of the effects of very low interest rates. Money markets aren't much better, since we're printing dollars by the container ship load. So that leaves stocks.
Every two weeks, a new deluge of money hits the brokerage houses. Who must then invest this money in order to justify their very existence. So they mostly buy stocks with it. What stocks do they buy? The stocks that other brokerage houses are willing to sell to make a profit for their investors. So the price goes up, and all the brokers make a little money on each trade, plus a little more in management and maintenance fees.
And two weeks later (every week, really, since companies aren't all on the same pay cycle) it all happens again. And again. And again. Driving the prices ever higher, with dollars seeking stocks.
When does the market go down? When the brokers get spooked by something, whether it's a real threat or not. They're a bit like horses that way. When they get spooked, they run away, selling stocks to take the lowest loss, or to lock in a long-term gain. This is when the short sellers make their fortunes.
But the flow of money into the system keeps coming, floating all boats. The dip ends, and the market rallies. The prices stabilize, and then raise back up again.
When will the market start going down for a long term? When money starts leaving the system, by people withdrawing their funds from their accounts. Or when debts force companies, especially banks and other financial institutions, into bankruptcy. That's when money really gets erased from the system.
Our elders have their pension funds, paid by their companies. We have retirement accounts, dependent upon the market. Our children have debts.
Nothing lasts forever, and the current trend of rising markets must eventually end. When that happens, there will be a panic of selling and profit taking, driving the market prices down even faster. This is how the system works.
The stock market, as a whole, has very little to do with the actual financial health of the companies whose stocks are traded. It operates on the flow of money, and rumors driving the confident yet skittish herds of brokers this way and that. Plus the occasional predator preying on the herds, and the parasites taking their drops of blood. It is a human institution, after all.
Simple. Supply and demand. In this case, the supply of money and demand for stocks keeps growing, while the actual number of stocks stays relatively stagnant. (Yes, this is a bit oversimplified, but still effectively true.) People, millions of people, have money taken out of their paychecks every two weeks or so. This money is transferred into their retirement accounts, whatever form they might take. This money is then managed by brokers (who take their cut) and invested in stocks, bonds, and money market accounts. Of these, stocks are the traditional money makers. The bond market is terrible, and has been for years - one of the effects of very low interest rates. Money markets aren't much better, since we're printing dollars by the container ship load. So that leaves stocks.
Every two weeks, a new deluge of money hits the brokerage houses. Who must then invest this money in order to justify their very existence. So they mostly buy stocks with it. What stocks do they buy? The stocks that other brokerage houses are willing to sell to make a profit for their investors. So the price goes up, and all the brokers make a little money on each trade, plus a little more in management and maintenance fees.
And two weeks later (every week, really, since companies aren't all on the same pay cycle) it all happens again. And again. And again. Driving the prices ever higher, with dollars seeking stocks.
When does the market go down? When the brokers get spooked by something, whether it's a real threat or not. They're a bit like horses that way. When they get spooked, they run away, selling stocks to take the lowest loss, or to lock in a long-term gain. This is when the short sellers make their fortunes.
But the flow of money into the system keeps coming, floating all boats. The dip ends, and the market rallies. The prices stabilize, and then raise back up again.
When will the market start going down for a long term? When money starts leaving the system, by people withdrawing their funds from their accounts. Or when debts force companies, especially banks and other financial institutions, into bankruptcy. That's when money really gets erased from the system.
Our elders have their pension funds, paid by their companies. We have retirement accounts, dependent upon the market. Our children have debts.
Nothing lasts forever, and the current trend of rising markets must eventually end. When that happens, there will be a panic of selling and profit taking, driving the market prices down even faster. This is how the system works.
The stock market, as a whole, has very little to do with the actual financial health of the companies whose stocks are traded. It operates on the flow of money, and rumors driving the confident yet skittish herds of brokers this way and that. Plus the occasional predator preying on the herds, and the parasites taking their drops of blood. It is a human institution, after all.
Saturday, July 15, 2017
Why gravity is so weak
Gravity - it's a real downer. It's a drag all the time. But it's fantastically weak. A small refrigerator magnet can hold up a paperclip against the gravitic pull of THE ENTIRE PLANET EARTH.
And nobody knows why. Why is gravity so weak? How weak is it? Gravity is about 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (that's forty zeros, 10^40) times weaker than electromagnetism.
Please notice that that figure is in the same ballpark as the reduced Planck's constant (about 10^-34).
Please also notice that gravity, seemingly alone of all forces, actively operates in the realm of complex numbers. Imaginary space, direction, and energy. Which implies that space, itself, exists on the complex field, not just our real number plane. We just experience the real number portion of it. Maybe that's why we can't explain over 95% of the energy of the universe.
So, if gravity operates equally across all of quantised complex space, you would only expect something less than 10^-34 of that force to align exactly with the real number plane. It's simple probability. No extra, tiny, curled up dimensions required. Simply advanced math and a different perspective.
So, gravity is weak because it operates in complex space, in real-number space. We exist and interact solely with real number space and phenomena. Hence, gravity seems weak to us.
Corollary - What if 'dark matter' is really 'imaginary matter'? Matter existing off the real number plane of normal physics, and interacting solely along the imaginary plane? Imaginary space, direction, time and energy? That would make sense of dark energy, why it affects gravity (and our gravity affects it), and why it doesn't seem to interact at all with normal, real number, everyday existence.
Fun fact - when something falls into a black hole, it crosses over from the real number plane of physics to the complex field at the same moment it crosses the event horizon. Does the speed of light have any meaning in the complex plane? Or does it just apply here, in ordinary real-number space? Black holes aren't dissipating with any noticeable speed, so the vast majority of the energy must be retained. Dark matter seems to congregate around normal matter galaxies, so they are probably feeling the pull of black holes, too. But this isn't proof. Of course, by the nature of things we can probably never have real proof, but it's fun to think about.
I hereby label the positive imaginary axis of greater reality 'Heaven' and the negative axis 'Hell'. They are all around us, all the time. They're just set the width of one thought to the side, slightly out of phase with what we think of as reality.
And nobody knows why. Why is gravity so weak? How weak is it? Gravity is about 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (that's forty zeros, 10^40) times weaker than electromagnetism.
Please notice that that figure is in the same ballpark as the reduced Planck's constant (about 10^-34).
Please also notice that gravity, seemingly alone of all forces, actively operates in the realm of complex numbers. Imaginary space, direction, and energy. Which implies that space, itself, exists on the complex field, not just our real number plane. We just experience the real number portion of it. Maybe that's why we can't explain over 95% of the energy of the universe.
So, if gravity operates equally across all of quantised complex space, you would only expect something less than 10^-34 of that force to align exactly with the real number plane. It's simple probability. No extra, tiny, curled up dimensions required. Simply advanced math and a different perspective.
So, gravity is weak because it operates in complex space, in real-number space. We exist and interact solely with real number space and phenomena. Hence, gravity seems weak to us.
Corollary - What if 'dark matter' is really 'imaginary matter'? Matter existing off the real number plane of normal physics, and interacting solely along the imaginary plane? Imaginary space, direction, time and energy? That would make sense of dark energy, why it affects gravity (and our gravity affects it), and why it doesn't seem to interact at all with normal, real number, everyday existence.
Fun fact - when something falls into a black hole, it crosses over from the real number plane of physics to the complex field at the same moment it crosses the event horizon. Does the speed of light have any meaning in the complex plane? Or does it just apply here, in ordinary real-number space? Black holes aren't dissipating with any noticeable speed, so the vast majority of the energy must be retained. Dark matter seems to congregate around normal matter galaxies, so they are probably feeling the pull of black holes, too. But this isn't proof. Of course, by the nature of things we can probably never have real proof, but it's fun to think about.
I hereby label the positive imaginary axis of greater reality 'Heaven' and the negative axis 'Hell'. They are all around us, all the time. They're just set the width of one thought to the side, slightly out of phase with what we think of as reality.
Wednesday, July 5, 2017
Let's talk about time
Time. We all know it. Or do we? There really isn't a good definition of time that doesn't refer to time. Relativity shows that time does not pass at the same rate from all perspectives.
Let's start with some basics. Time only goes forward. You can't go backwards in time. You can, however, stop in time. Photons don't recognize the passage of time. They don't recognize the existence of space, either, so it all averages out.
Why is this? Think of time as a vector. It has a starting point, a length, and it points in a direction. If you change the length, that's just changing the length, not making it go a different direction. If you rotate the vector, you just change the direction it's going. It's still going from now to when. It's just pointed in a different direction. Even if you reverse the direction, it still points from now to when. It's not going backwards. Change the starting point, and you're just moving the vector around.
You can't go backwards because the vector always points to somewhere else, or to nowhere at all. It can't point from it's starting point to somewhere before that point - there is no such place. Unless you want to speculate that the imaginary plane of existence counts as real, and that the length and direction of the vector are written as complex numbers. Then you might be onto something. But without that, in our real universe working with real numbers, it's not valid.
Why do time and space contract when something moves more quickly, or when experiencing a greater force of gravity? Because if they didn't, causality would explode. For more on that, go read up on general and special relativity. How does this work? Go check out my previous blog post, and some of the earlier ones on the subject. Summary - Spacetime is an energy field. All other energy fields (electromagnetism, mass, etc.) draw from this field. Momentum is a highly local (Planck length or less - my guess is 1/2 Planck length) distortion of the field around a particle. Velocity is the sine of the slope of the energy gradient. Time and space perception are the cosine of the slope. Notice that perceived passage of time is at ninety degrees to the passage of space. Thus, the fourth dimension is at right angles to the third. Nifty, ain't it?
Is there a universal time? Yes. There must be. Proof: Using relativity, photons do not experience the passage of time. Therefore, they do not move, they do not change, they exist in a timeless (literally) now. However, we can see that this is utter nonsense. Photons are created, move along predictable paths, influenced by the natural forces, change according to natural law, and eventually perish when they are absorbed upon interacting with a particle. (Except the ones that escape into empty space forever - a possibility.) If no time passes, how can the photon change? A photon obviously can and does change, or red and blue shifts wouldn't happen. So, there must be a universal tick affecting them as they move along, completely oblivious to what is happening to them.
Proof two - a particle entering a black hole experiences accelerations and gravitational shifts to perceived time. At the moment the particle reaches the event horizon, time stops for it. But the particle obvious continues on into the black hole, spending only an infinitesimal moment of 'real' time crossing the threshold at the speed of light. How can it do this if there is no time for it to happen? Universal tick.
Photons move at the rate of one smallest unit of space per one tick of the universal clock. Please note that this is movement, velocity, momentum. It is unrelated to spin, except that a whole (or, rather, half) number of rotations must happen per tick to keep everything even. No, I can't prove it, but it makes sense and seems to agree with known properties. (Particles spin faster than the speed of light. Sort of. It's OK, because they are really tiny, and they're not actually going anywhere. Divide really fast speed by essentially no distance, and it all evens out.)
Let's start with some basics. Time only goes forward. You can't go backwards in time. You can, however, stop in time. Photons don't recognize the passage of time. They don't recognize the existence of space, either, so it all averages out.
Why is this? Think of time as a vector. It has a starting point, a length, and it points in a direction. If you change the length, that's just changing the length, not making it go a different direction. If you rotate the vector, you just change the direction it's going. It's still going from now to when. It's just pointed in a different direction. Even if you reverse the direction, it still points from now to when. It's not going backwards. Change the starting point, and you're just moving the vector around.
You can't go backwards because the vector always points to somewhere else, or to nowhere at all. It can't point from it's starting point to somewhere before that point - there is no such place. Unless you want to speculate that the imaginary plane of existence counts as real, and that the length and direction of the vector are written as complex numbers. Then you might be onto something. But without that, in our real universe working with real numbers, it's not valid.
Why do time and space contract when something moves more quickly, or when experiencing a greater force of gravity? Because if they didn't, causality would explode. For more on that, go read up on general and special relativity. How does this work? Go check out my previous blog post, and some of the earlier ones on the subject. Summary - Spacetime is an energy field. All other energy fields (electromagnetism, mass, etc.) draw from this field. Momentum is a highly local (Planck length or less - my guess is 1/2 Planck length) distortion of the field around a particle. Velocity is the sine of the slope of the energy gradient. Time and space perception are the cosine of the slope. Notice that perceived passage of time is at ninety degrees to the passage of space. Thus, the fourth dimension is at right angles to the third. Nifty, ain't it?
Is there a universal time? Yes. There must be. Proof: Using relativity, photons do not experience the passage of time. Therefore, they do not move, they do not change, they exist in a timeless (literally) now. However, we can see that this is utter nonsense. Photons are created, move along predictable paths, influenced by the natural forces, change according to natural law, and eventually perish when they are absorbed upon interacting with a particle. (Except the ones that escape into empty space forever - a possibility.) If no time passes, how can the photon change? A photon obviously can and does change, or red and blue shifts wouldn't happen. So, there must be a universal tick affecting them as they move along, completely oblivious to what is happening to them.
Proof two - a particle entering a black hole experiences accelerations and gravitational shifts to perceived time. At the moment the particle reaches the event horizon, time stops for it. But the particle obvious continues on into the black hole, spending only an infinitesimal moment of 'real' time crossing the threshold at the speed of light. How can it do this if there is no time for it to happen? Universal tick.
Photons move at the rate of one smallest unit of space per one tick of the universal clock. Please note that this is movement, velocity, momentum. It is unrelated to spin, except that a whole (or, rather, half) number of rotations must happen per tick to keep everything even. No, I can't prove it, but it makes sense and seems to agree with known properties. (Particles spin faster than the speed of light. Sort of. It's OK, because they are really tiny, and they're not actually going anywhere. Divide really fast speed by essentially no distance, and it all evens out.)
Tuesday, July 4, 2017
Gravity isn't what you think it is.
I've spent a lot of the last few years learning about the principles of relativity, which leads to study of gravity and quantum physics. I will admit I am not a professional, trained physicist. I passed the introductory classes in college, but that was (mumble) years ago. I am, however, an interested and intelligent layman, and a military trained (and quite successful) analyst. I am also quite bright, but not quite at the level of genius I have seen in a few others. That being said, I have an idea about gravity that seems to tie all the loose threads of gravity, dark energy, and quantum physics together. It's really quite simple and elegant, and just different enough to be off the beaten track of every day physics.
Gravity is not an attractive force. It is a repulsive force. It does not originate from matter, but from empty space. Stop laughing. I'll explain once you wipe the tears from your eyes.
Postulate an additional energy field. Call it spacetime. Give it a large, positive value at every point. Quantize this energy field. Now, from spacetime, instantaneously subtract the energy of all other fields. Then spread that draw out in a root-square fashion, also instantaneously and infinitely. (All quantum fields act instantaneously and infinitely, by the way. Physicists don't like to talk about it.)
There you have it. Gravity. What? You don't see it? It's an artifact of the curvature of the energy levels of spacetime. As the energy level slopes down, a particle would move in that direction and gain energy. A particle moving up the energy gradient would lose energy. We see this effect all the time, and call it gravity.
Momentum (velocity) is explained as a particle's local energy disruption. In a sphere about the particle, imagine a lower energy level in the direction of travel, neutral energy levels ninety degrees to that direction, and higher energies opposed to the direction of travel. These energy levels interact with the ambient energy of spacetime to create the interaction of gravity with motion. It also explains the blue and redshifts of photons, as they gain or lose energy climbing out of the local energy field of the particle which created them, and the ambient energy field of spacetime. The local field interacts with spacetime to alter the local field. (Other interactions also can alter it, such as the effects of all the other forces through other fields.)
What about relativistic effects? Oh, that's easy. Velocity (measured against the speed of light as 1) is computed as the sine of the slope about any particular particle, including its own energy distortion. Time and space dilation is computed quite simply as the cosine of this same angle.
That's it. That's all there is. It explains everything in one simple, elegant package. It computed gravity effects in terms of energy usage. It explains the exact matching of gravity and velocity based relativistic effects. It explains red and blue shift. It explains the source of all quantum effects - all other fields must draw their energy from spacetime, which is itself quantized. It explains the effects of dark energy. It even explains the inflationary period after the big bang, if you think about it long and hard enough. Gravity waves are simply waves propagating through spacetime, moving along at the normal restrictions of light speed given to any wave in a quantum field. (See? Physicists don't like to talk about the field propagation duality of infinite fields with restricted waves.)
Please ponder and discuss amongst yourselves, and let me know any holes you find in the comments. I'd really appreciate it. Thanks.
Gravity is not an attractive force. It is a repulsive force. It does not originate from matter, but from empty space. Stop laughing. I'll explain once you wipe the tears from your eyes.
Postulate an additional energy field. Call it spacetime. Give it a large, positive value at every point. Quantize this energy field. Now, from spacetime, instantaneously subtract the energy of all other fields. Then spread that draw out in a root-square fashion, also instantaneously and infinitely. (All quantum fields act instantaneously and infinitely, by the way. Physicists don't like to talk about it.)
There you have it. Gravity. What? You don't see it? It's an artifact of the curvature of the energy levels of spacetime. As the energy level slopes down, a particle would move in that direction and gain energy. A particle moving up the energy gradient would lose energy. We see this effect all the time, and call it gravity.
Momentum (velocity) is explained as a particle's local energy disruption. In a sphere about the particle, imagine a lower energy level in the direction of travel, neutral energy levels ninety degrees to that direction, and higher energies opposed to the direction of travel. These energy levels interact with the ambient energy of spacetime to create the interaction of gravity with motion. It also explains the blue and redshifts of photons, as they gain or lose energy climbing out of the local energy field of the particle which created them, and the ambient energy field of spacetime. The local field interacts with spacetime to alter the local field. (Other interactions also can alter it, such as the effects of all the other forces through other fields.)
What about relativistic effects? Oh, that's easy. Velocity (measured against the speed of light as 1) is computed as the sine of the slope about any particular particle, including its own energy distortion. Time and space dilation is computed quite simply as the cosine of this same angle.
That's it. That's all there is. It explains everything in one simple, elegant package. It computed gravity effects in terms of energy usage. It explains the exact matching of gravity and velocity based relativistic effects. It explains red and blue shift. It explains the source of all quantum effects - all other fields must draw their energy from spacetime, which is itself quantized. It explains the effects of dark energy. It even explains the inflationary period after the big bang, if you think about it long and hard enough. Gravity waves are simply waves propagating through spacetime, moving along at the normal restrictions of light speed given to any wave in a quantum field. (See? Physicists don't like to talk about the field propagation duality of infinite fields with restricted waves.)
Please ponder and discuss amongst yourselves, and let me know any holes you find in the comments. I'd really appreciate it. Thanks.
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